In what sounds like the setup for a stylish Hollywood heist movie, Germany is transferring 635 tonnes of gold bars worth $36 billion US from Paris and New York to its vaults in Frankfurt.

The move is part of an effort by Germany's central bank to bring much of its gold home after keeping big reserves outside the country for safekeeping during the Cold War.

Shipping such a large amount of valuable cargo between countries could be a serious security headache.

A gold robbery — the subject of such movies as "Die Hard 3" and "The Italian Job" — would be embarrassing and expensive for Germany.

The high-stakes, high-security plan is to move the precious metal — 340 tonnes from vaults in Paris and 270 tonnes stored at the New York Federal Reserve Bank — to the Bundesbank in Germany's financial center over the next eight years.

For obvious reasons, the central bank won't say whether the estimated 50,000 bars are being moved by air, sea or land or how it intends to keep the shipments safe.

"For security reasons we can't discuss that, partly to protect the gold, partly to protect the staff that will be carrying out the transfer," said Bundesbank spokesman Moritz August Raasch.

"But, of course, since we transport large sums of money around Germany every day, we've got a certain amount of experience with this."

Bundesbank already returned 770 tonnes

The Bundesbank, which also brought home about 770 tonnes of gold from London between 1998 and 2001, isn't taking any chances.

"We have specific containers for such cargo, then teams accompanying the cargo until the plane's loaded and ready to take off, then people waiting where the plane lands," he said.

"Overall it must be said that the transport over land is the riskiest part. Flying is safer than driving, and an airport is already a heavily secured area."

Zorica Obrovac, of the German company SG Security GmbH, which moves precious cargo in armored cars with armed protection, said: "If it were such a high-value cargo as tonnes of gold, I would obviously split it in several shipments. And the key is not to tell anyone, the fewest people possible in the company that orders the shipment."

During the Cold War, Germany kept most of its gold abroad for fear it could fall into the hands of the Soviet Union if the country were invaded.

Another reason was to have the precious metal close to the foreign currency markets in London, Paris and New York, where gold is traded.

New York will still hold 37%Since France, like Germany, switched to the euro more than a decade ago, storing gold for foreign currency swaps in Paris is no longer necessary, the Bundesbank said.

Once the shipment is complete, Frankfurt will hold half of Germany's 3,100 tonnes of reserve gold — currently worth about $183 billion — with New York retaining 37 per cent and London 13 per cent.

The decision to bring some of the gold back home also follows criticism last year from Germany's independent Federal Auditors' Office, which concluded that the central bank failed to properly oversee its reserves.

The auditor suggested the bank carry out regular inspections of gold held abroad.

The auditors' report stunned Germany, where the Bundesbank routinely tops polls of the nation's most trusted institutions, and politicians pushed for the gold to come home.

The central bank defended itself by saying, "There is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign storage sites."

The New York Federal Reserve Bank's gold vault, for example, is about 25 metres below street level in lower Manhattan, its only entry protected by a 90-ton steel cylinder nearly three metres high.

Queen K wrote:So I'm off by a few billion, same question tho, do they know something we don't?

Yes queen the Germans know that their gold at NY fed. is gone, that's why they have to pull it all home over the next 7 years in smaller amounts, in fact there's probably no gold at the NY fed or at Ft. Knox that isn't lent out or rehypothicated over and over again to the point that no one knows who owns what might be there.

Pretty sure you would see the same graph for every country in the world including the notable socialistics like Cuba and Venezuala as well as communist China. Toss in a few Monarchy's like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia too. Same thing. There are 1%'ers everywhere.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Captain Awesome wrote:I wonder if Rek was a huge doomsayer around Y2K thing.Since he claims to be "one of the best computer programmers in the Valley", I just see him arguing with everybody how planes will go down, rockets will go off, and twinky factories will stop.

Was just perusing some old posts and found this one by Captain Awesome... the part about the twinkie factories stopping was more accurate than any of the apocalyptic predictions by Rek and company!!!

We're now 2 years past the start of this thread and have already gone through a major worldwide economic downturn and Canadian home prices have remained stable (many of the US cities that saw prices collapse have already recovered much of their value), and we haven't seen anything remotely resembling hyperinflation. The Americans didn't flood over our border and life in Canada is still pretty darn good.

Looks like a lot of fear-mongering for nothing. I guess by "coming American collapse" it could have meant 50, 100, or 200 years from now. Not worth worrying about.

The U.S. is crumbling, albeit slowly. They are essentially bankrupt. The middle class is deteriorating, part-time job creation is dominating full-time creation, food stamp usage was the highest on record in December, manufacturing has moved offshore, there still remains 2M homes that will be foreclosed on, many cities have deteriorated, camp cities have popped up all over, the majority of people have no healthcare, their education system is dwindling, they must purchase their own debt to keep rates low, interest payments continue to consume more tax revenue YOY, and they are losing their political sway internationally. The U.S. is folowing the same path as South America did during the 70's and 80's. These things do not happen overnight, but rather over a generation. When one looks back, the U.S. peaked with Bill Clinton, and has gone downhill ever since then.